WRC Rallye de France Day 3

The final day of the WRC Rally of France and with Markko Martin and Sebastien Loeb out of the running and Richard Burns back in 8th Carlos Sainz could take the lead in the championship. But if Petter Solberg's form from day two continues nobody will be able to catch him for the win. Stage 13 of the rally and Solberg continues, he sets a 4th fastest stage time in a row extending his lead to over 20 seconds from Duval. During the service stop between stages 13 and 14 the rain begins to pour down yet again. But in the mountains it is still dry and most drivers chose to go out on slick tyres.

Stage 14 and with such a big lead Solberg begins to back off to protect his car. Meanwhile, behind him the scrap for 2nd is heating up with Sainz beating Duval on this stage by 7.5 seconds to move within 0.1 of a second of the Belgian. Heavy rain on stage 15 and all the cars were back out on wet tyres except for Carlos Sainz who continued on slicks. Although there was no change on the leader board Markko Martin did have his third accident in three days. Martin locked his breaks around a corner and threw his car off the stage down a hill into the trees but luckily emerged with no injuries.

The final stage of the day saw Richard Burns pushing to overtake Makinen and claim a valuable extra championship point, but as hard as Burns pushed Makinen pushed harder and Burns had to settle for 8th. Solberg cruised to his rally win and claimed top spot on the podium. While Sainz managed to overtake Duval for second on the last stage. The final standings for the Rally of France are,

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